Saud Alsanousi - The Bamboo Stalk

He recovered everything, except his mind.

11

At first no one dared tell my mother in Bahrain what had happened to Adrian and they were hoping they wouldn’t have to because he would recover before she came home. But two years later, after they had lost hope, Aida phoned my mother to tell her all about the accident, leaving aside the permanent damage it had done to him. Alberto had come back from one of his trips a few weeks after the incident. He was horrified at what had happened. He spent most of his four months’ leave in the bar close to his house, then disappeared to sea again.

After Aunt Aida called her, my mother came straight back from Bahrain. That was in the middle of 1995. We waited for her at home — Aunt Aida, Merla, Adrian and me, Pedro and his children.

Tragedy leaves deep scars on the walls of memory, whereas happiness paints pictures on them in bright colours. Time acts on the walls like rain: it washes away the colours but leaves the scars.

Uncle Pedro pulled the door open just as my mother was about to come in. I jumped up and she hugged me. ‘You’ve grown into a man, José!’ she said, overjoyed. Everyone exchanged kisses and greetings with her. Everyone was awaiting the inevitable confrontation. The group moved apart around her. My mother looked at Adrian in his corner and went up to him. ‘Three years,’ she said with a big smile. ‘Enough for you to forget your mother.’

Her smile faded.

‘What’s wrong with him, looking at me like that?’ she asked.

Uncle Pedro wrapped his arms around her and Aunt Aida took her hand. ‘Sit down, first sit down, Josephine,’ my aunt said. My mother’s face changed.

‘What’s going on here?’ she asked.

Slobber was pouring from Adrian’s open mouth. My mother clasped her hand to her mouth and sat down between her sister and her brother.

Aunt Aida began to explain, stumbling for words. Uncle Pedro joined in, also explaining. My mother’s face was frozen and only her eyebrows showed signs of her anguish. She burst into tears. She went to Adrian and hugged him tight but he pushed her away. She turned to Aunt Aida, her eyes throwing sparks, and began to insult her between sobs. ‘You bitch, you bitch!’ she said.

She raised her arm and brought it down on Aida’s face.

‘What kind of future can my son expect now, all because of you,’ she shouted, slapping Aida around the face. Aida stood up but she didn’t try to push her away or protect her face with her arms.

‘I wish I hadn’t come back,’ said my mother. ‘Why do all these things happen to me?’

My mother went on hitting Aida, while I put my hands over my face, the sound of the slaps ringing in my ears.

‘I wish I hadn’t come back, I wish I hadn’t come back,’ she continued.

Then she stopped slapping her sister and hugged her tight. Aida burst out crying too.

‘Josephine! Enough,’ said Uncle Pedro, pushing my mother towards my room.

It was the first time I had seen Aunt Aida cry.

Something inside me told me that no one but I deserved all those slaps. Although it was Aida’s face that received them, I could feel the sting of them.

My mother spent a week crying over Adrian. Once she had exhausted all her sadness and all her reserves of tears, she called everyone into the sitting room. She sat on the ground with her suitcase open in front of her and gave out the presents she had brought from Bahrain for the members of the family, as if nothing had happened.

I wonder if she believed that what happened to Adrian happened for a reason, and for some purpose.

12

In one of her letters from Bahrain, my mother said she wanted to swim across the sea to Kuwait to meet my father or at least find out what had happened to him after the war. She didn’t know that all she needed to do was come home to the Philippines and find out there.

One night in 1996, or about a year after my mother came back from Bahrain, I was lying on the sofa in the sitting room of our little house, after an exhausting day at work with my grandfather. Aunt Aida and Merla were watching television and my mother was with Adrian in my room because there was a power cut at her husband’s house. Suddenly we heard Uncle Pedro calling ‘Aida, Aida!’ from outside. He opened the door and, clearly bursting to share some news, he asked, ‘Where’s Josephine? I went to her house and there was no one there.’

Aida pointed to the door of my room. ‘She’s in José’s room,’ she said. ‘What’s up?’ Without answering, Pedro headed off to my room. My curiosity was aroused and I followed him.

When Pedro opened the door, letting light into the dark room, my mother put a finger to her lips. ‘Shhh,’ she said. ‘Don’t wake up the boy. I’ll come and join you in a minute.’

In the small sitting room my mother sat down between Aida and Merla, while I stood next to Pedro.

‘I delivered some goods to a company today,’ he said.

Mother looked at his face with interest, her eyes half-closed.

‘The company belongs to a Kuwaiti businessman,’ Pedro continued.

Now her eyes opened wide. ‘Go on. And then what?’ she said.

‘One of the staff said the man’s well-known in Kuwait,’ he continued, looking Mother straight in the face.

Mother stared back. ‘A writer, a novelist, or something like that,’ Pedro added.

Mother stood up straight. ‘Do you think. .?’ she said.

* * *

Since my father had been writing for a Kuwaiti newspaper, my mother hoped it might be possible to get some information from this man, something that would lead her to him, or maybe she hoped that the man himself would turn out to be Rashid.

Pedro decided to take my mother to see the man the next day to ask him if he had heard of my father or if he could help us reach him or find out what had become of him.

My mother didn’t sleep that night. She woke me up early in the morning and asked me to get changed and join her with Uncle Pedro.

‘What’s a Kuwaiti businessman doing in the Philippines?’ my mother asked Pedro while we were on our way to meet the man.

‘The people who work there say he’s been living here for five years. But that’s none of our business,’ said Pedro.

At the man’s office one of the staff told us he was away in Bahrain.

‘Will he be staying there long?’ Pedro asked.

‘Two weeks at the most,’ the man said. ‘He has a play on there.’

Uncle Pedro turned to my mother and said, ‘Well our little play here seems to be over.’

Mother turned to me and said, ‘The man’s in Bahrain.’

She paused a moment, then continued, ‘He was here when I was in Bahrain, and today he’s in Bahrain and I’m here.’

We went back to the car. My mother was speaking to herself: ‘Everything happens for a reason, and for some purpose.’

She opened the car door and sat in the seat. ‘I’d very much like to meet this man,’ she said.

We went back later in the hope of meeting the Kuwaiti man when he was back from his trip. My mother pinned many hopes on meeting him. ‘He’s bound to know Rashid,’ she said. ‘Or perhaps he knows at least how we can get in touch with him. Fate has something in store for us.’

When we were almost home, in the narrow lane leading to Mendoza’s land, Uncle Pedro stopped his truck to make way for a vehicle that had just come out.

When we asked Mendoza about the vehicle, he beamed with delight. ‘Those guys were representatives from Smart Communications,’ he said, taking a piece of paper out of his pocket. ‘I’ve just signed a contract with them. They’re renting six square metres of the land to set up a relay tower. They’re going to pay rent every month.’

My mother looked away from Mendoza and waved her hand dismissively. ‘A cockerel every month, more likely,’ she said.